Facebook stock

Mark Zuckerberg, 35 year old founder of Facebook, owns 393 million shares of Facebook stock valued at $73 billion dollars. This represents 14% of the company stock. He has said he will give away 99% of what he owns. In order to escape estate tax he would have to sell the stock and give the proceeds to a 501 charity. This would cause the value of the stock to decline and the remaining stock holders would absorb the loss. In other words it would be a transfer of money from the company to the charity in order to avoid the taxes. If he were to die without making plans to give it away he would have to pay 40% federal estate tax plus another 10% for state estate tax and thus his estate would have to sell $36 billion in stock to pay the tax. This once again would be a transfer of company money but this time to the government. If a wealth tax is instituted he would have to sell stock each year in order to pay the government. All of these situations result in a weakening of the company meaning less chance to expand and create new jobs.